see how fast they fall apart
by ZombifyMeCapn
Summary: Clarke is content with her life revolving around the hospital at which she works. She puts in long hours and dedication to saving lives, and she's okay with that. But when a shootout in downtown Boston brings a cop determined to shake things up for Clarke, can she keep up or will he send her spiraling out of control? Bellarke. Hospital AU.
1. Chapter 1

**See bottom for notes.  
Story title credit goes to _Biting Down_ by Lorde.**

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**I.**

Clarke sighed as she glanced at her watch; 3:15AM. Her shift was over in just under two hours, and she was already counting ahead to her next 48-hour shift at Ark Memorial Hospital. It was quiet this evening in the OR. She'd had a couple of minor surgeries—one appendectomy, two obstructed bowels, and one particularly nasty growth removal—before all was quiet on the front, and she could relax in the break-room with a steaming cup of coffee. The ache in her back dulled to an irritation as she slouched against the chair, her legs stretched out in front of her. While her body was grateful for the lack of activity, her mind was not. It was abuzz with duties she had to perform before she could go home, like checking various patients' charts and performing typical exams following surgery.

A chuckle behind her made her start, nearly falling out of her chair and spilling coffee all over herself.

"Even when on break you can't relax, can you?" Clarke looked anywhere but at his face, which he noticed. "Come on, Clarke. You can't ignore me forever, can you?"

_Watch me_, she wanted to say, but her body betrayed her and she shook her head. His face broke out in a wide grin, and three months ago such a sight would have made her stomach do somersaults. Now, it just made her sad.

Finn Collins was one of the best cardiologists on the east coast, and his perception and genuine care for his patients were what initially drew Clarke to him like a moth to a flame. It didn't hurt that he had attractiveness and charm in his corner. After numerous shared glances and a couple of coffee dates, Clarke was positive it would turn into something real.

But like many things in her life, a relationship with Finn was simply not to be, if his secret fiancée was an indication of that fact. When Clarke met Raven, she was determined to hate her, but "the other woman" was just far too kind and Clarke couldn't find a single mean bone in the woman's body. Finn, however, was the one who was not safe from Clarke's anger. Even after Clarke had called it off, if only to spare Raven the hurt, he continued to pursue her, determined to make her see that they were, in fact, meant to be together.

"Your girlfriend—I'm sorry, _fiancée_—doesn't prove that theory," she had said as icily as she could. The look of hurt on Finn's boyish face was enough to satisfy Clarke as she turned on her heel in a blonde whirlwind.

Now, as he stood leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, Clarke found his presence about as wanted as a tumor pressing on her lung.

"Clarke, I—"

She shot up from her chair to dump her empty coffee cup, effectively cutting him off from what was bound to be another "I want you, I need you" speech. Frankly, she'd heard enough of Finn's pathetic attempts to win her back.

"Don't, Finn," she murmured, coming to a halt in front of him. He was blocking the door. She kept her eyes trained on his blue scrubs, willing herself not to look up.

"Please," he pleaded, "just hear me out, okay?"

"No, Finn," she said more firmly. This time she let herself meet his eyes in a stony glare that could crumble mountains. "I've had enough of the explanations, the reasons, the _excuses_. I'm done. Aside from work, I don't want to speak to you or even see you."

She brushed by him none too gently, knocking him off balance against the doorframe. He could only stare helplessly after her as she wandered down the hall to start her rounds. Once she got to the nurses' station on the third floor, she rested her elbows on the counter and dropped her head into her hands, sighing.

"Rough night?" asked Harper, the nurse behind the desk. She had a sad smile on her face; after the incident with Finn, word was quick to get around the hospital. Even the interns knew the ugly details of the falling out between her and Finn.

"You have no idea. Can I have the charts for 31F?" Harper handed her the binder wordlessly. "Thanks."

Clarke started on her rounds, checking her watch every few minutes. 4:30 rolled around and Clarke was nearly finished her rounds when the pager on her hip started beeping wildly. Sighing a curse, Clarke checked the message and felt the adrenaline rush almost immediately as her feet moved of their own accord to the emergency room.

"What've we got?" she called as she met up with the nurses and paramedics wheeling in a gurney.

"43-year-old male, Doug Marsh, hit-and-run, broken arm, four cracked ribs, bleeding from the mouth, likely internal bleeding."

"Let's get him in the OR now. Ellie, clear OR51." Clarke was all business; as soon as that pager went off, it was like a flip got switched inside her brain.

Clarke scrubbed her hands outside the OR while the patient was prepped for surgery. Once he was under, Clarke began the procedure, opening his abdomen to search for the bleeding. She found it quickly but cursed when her tools slipped over the artery, unable to sew it closed.

_Too much blood_, she thought as she grit her teeth. She almost cried out in success as she managed to get a suture through the flesh, continuing to tie the artery closed. Her joy was outlived, however, when blood continued to leak through the sutures, the artery pulsing.

"He's still bleeding!" she cried. Outside the circle of nurses, the monitor went haywire with shrill beeping. Clarke's mind went into overdrive as she fought to sew more sutures into the artery, but blood was still coming. The abdomen was quickly filling with blood, and each fresh wave that pulsed out of the artery drained Clarke's hope until finally, the monitor slowed to one long, consistent beep. The line was flat.

In Clarke's medical career, she'd only had two patients die on the table. _Three_, she thought bitterly as she sat outside the OR, her head in her hands. Any time a patient died on the table was a hard hit for a surgeon, but Clarke took it almost personally. She saw it as a failure to save a life, a failure to the degree hanging up in her office.

"You did everything you could, Clarke." A hand laid itself on her shoulder and she peered upwards into the face of Monty, one of the paramedics that had brought in Mr. Marsh. He was smiling sadly in an attempt to get her out of the dark corner of her mind.

"If I had he wouldn't be lying in the morgue right now," was her clipped response. Monty sat in the vacant seat next to her.

"Clarke, the man was bleeding out. It was just his time to go, and that isn't your fault." Clarke understood what he was trying to do, but unfortunately for her the dark corner of her mind was slowly winning out. She sighed dejectedly and all Monty could do was squeeze her shoulder one more time before returning to the ambulance.

Needing to move, to not think about the latest tenant in the Ark Memorial morgue, Clarke stood up and approached the nearest nurses' station.

"Was the family of Mr. Marsh notified?" she asked tiredly. The nurse behind the desk nodded.

"They're on their way down." Clarke nodded, pursing her lips.

This was the part she hated the most. The first time Clarke had to relay bad news to a family, she nearly broke down with them. But she somehow kept her composure until she was out of sight. The sobs that wracked her body were hardly muffled by her hands. They were ugly and gave her a headache afterwards.

_You never forget your first_.

Finn's words echoed in her head; they were one of the first things he'd ever said to her—he was the one who comforted her after telling a family they'd never see their son again, after all. But they were also some of the harshest words he'd ever said to her; it was after Clarke found out about Raven and had confronted him for messing with her head and her heart. She was done, she told him, and she'd never waste another thought on him. And with a cold glint in his eye that Clarke had never seen before, he uttered those words like they held some kind of weight.

Clarke snapped out of her reverie as her name was called. Standing before her was an older woman with greying brown hair and glossy blue eyes. Unshed tears pooled at her lash lines.

This must be Mrs. Marsh.

"Are you Dr. Griffin?" she asked, her voice thick with emotion.

Clarke smiled sadly, nodding. "I am. You must be Mrs. Marsh. I'm sorry that we're meeting under these circumstances. Your husband was struck by a hit-and-run this morning, but I'm very sorry to say that the damage was far too extensive. We did everything we could, but—"

She was cut off mid-sentence when Mrs. Marsh let out an agonizing wail that sent chills down Clarke's spine. Mrs. Marsh pitched forward and Clarke had no choice but to catch her. The woman was crying into Clarke's white lab coat while she rubbed comforting circles on the older woman's back.

"I'm so very sorry, Mrs. Marsh," she murmured despite herself. Four years, and Clarke still wasn't used to the throb in her chest every time she had to bring bad news to someone who probably didn't deserve it.

It took two nurses to pry Mrs. Marsh away from Clarke and sit her down in a chair. Clarke wiped a hand across her forehead tiredly before checking her watch. 6AM. Her shift ended an hour ago.

She made a beeline for the locker room, sure to turn off her pager before she could get sucked away from heading home to her bed. She changed quickly, tossing her lab coat and scrubs into the locker and slamming it shut.

She bid goodnight to the nurses behind the desk and hurried out into the lightening day. The sun was barely up by the time she pulled her car into her apartment complex. She took the stairs two at a time and unlocked her door, all but slamming it closed behind her. Then she let the tears fall, choking back a sob as her eyes pinched closed. After a few short minutes of leaning against the door and trying to keep as quiet as she could, Clarke swiped her fingers under her eyes, ridding any trace that she had been crying. Her roommate's door was still closed when she walked by; Jasper should be awake any moment now, preparing for class. She didn't want him to see her in her current state, though. She couldn't ignore the sympathy in his eyes whenever she came home a mess; it didn't happen often, but it happened enough for Clarke to be bothered by it. This was her career; messes were part of it.

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**Author's Note: So I might be making a little bit of a comeback as far as writing goes. This is my very first Bellarke fic so please be nice. Also reviews give me life, so leave one :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

Clarke was in no mood for Finn's games. Her day had been long and tiring, starting with some bonehead junkie that thought it'd be a good idea to smuggle drugs via balloons and swallow them. He was lucky none of the balloons had burst, otherwise it would have been his life. The police were called promptly following the surgery and he was cuffed to his hospital bed. Immediately after, Finn had gotten the equally boneheaded idea that the pair of them should talk over dinner at Clarke's favorite restaurant.

She wouldn't have looked more astounded if a leprechaun riding a unicorn came galloping down the hospital hall.

What didn't help the matter was her being paired with him for a cardiovascular surgery that he had ordered she scrub in on. The looks he was sending her across the patient's open chest were enough to make her want to stab a scalpel into his hand. He followed her after the surgery, giving her his best puppy dog eyes he could muster, but she was whisked away before she could really give him a piece of her mind.

As Clarke sewed someone's intestine back together following a pretty bad car wreck, she sought solace inside the locker room. Her coworker Monroe was the only one there so Clarke felt no qualms about laying a hard right hook to one of the lockers. Monroe offered her a sympathetic smile—why was everyone doing that lately?—as Clarke huffed and threw herself onto one of the benches.

"I hate men, Monroe," she grumbled pointlessly.

Monroe chuckled, "That's why I see women. You should try it, Clarke." The overly suggestive wink she tossed her way made Clarke laugh.

"Yeah, I don't think so. I experimented in college and that's about all I could handle."

Monroe shrugged one shoulder. "Suit yourself."

Conversation with Monroe brightened Clarke up enough to get her through the rest of the day. She did her rounds and ate her lunch without another hitch from Finn (he'd been pulled into a complicated heart transplant and would be out of her hair for a few hours at least). For the first time today she felt like she could relax.

That is, until her pager started beeping off the hook. One quick glance at the code sent Clarke flying out of the lunchroom and down three flights of stairs to the emergency room doors, where an ambulance was off-loading a gurney. The body atop it was being given oxygen, though what really grabbed Clarke's attention was the amount of blood staining the patient and the gurney.

_Jesus._

That switch in Clarke's mind was flipped and immediately she barked out, "What the hell happened?"

"Shootout at a bank downtown. We've got three more ambulances coming, but they're not as bad as this one. Bellamy Blake, twenty-seven years old, cop. Took a slug to the chest, wasn't wearing Kevlar. Bullet may have pierced his lung."

"Let's get him in OR8. I'm going to need more hands." Nurses nodded and scattered, heading off to do just that. "Get a chest drain going, make sure that lung is empty. I need an x-ray of his chest to see what we're working with."

Not ten minutes later Clarke was examining the officer's chest x-rays. She located the bullet easily; on the screen it was a bright white mass hovering in his left lung. In the operating room, Clarke's hands were steady as she opened the man's lung and removed the bullet easily. She dropped it and the tweezers used to retrieve it into a waiting pan for it to be bagged and disposed of. She closed the lung up easily and ordered that he be put on a ventilator until they were positive he would have no further breathing problems.

Out in the hall, a nurse rushed up to Clarke and pointed a younger girl sitting ten feet away, her eyes unfocused as she hunched in the chair.

"The officer's younger sister, Octavia. Only family we could find," she explained shortly. Clarke nodded and made her way towards the petite brunette.

"Ms. Blake?" Clarke said quietly, watching the girl closely as she started. Her wide, frightened eyes turned on Clarke and she was out of her chair in seconds.

"How is he? Is he okay? Is he alive?" The questions flew out of her mouth a mile a minute and it took Clarke's hands on her shoulders to calm her down.

"Ms. Blake, your brother is a very lucky man. The bullet pierced his lung but we were able to remove it fully, meaning there were no stray fragments that could have gotten lodged somewhere else. Now, he isn't out of the woods yet. There still is a risk of infection, but once we're sure he can breathe on his own—"

"Wait he isn't breathing?" Octavia cried.

"No, no, no. He's breathing. He just needs a machine to help him until the anesthesia wears off and we're 100% sure the lung is still functioning the way it's supposed to. Once we cross that bridge, I'm positive he'll make a full recovery."

Octavia's face shone with tears as she smiled and hugged Clarke to her. Clarke hugged her back, smiling slightly.

"I'll be tending to your brother personally," Clarke said, pulling away. "Just to make sure everything is going steadily."

"Thank you so much. Can I see him?"

"Unfortunately, we can't allow him any visitors yet, but as soon as we can I will find you immediately." Though clearly disappointed, Octavia still gave a quick upturn of her mouth and wiped at her eyes. "There's a restroom right down the hall if you'd like to get cleaned up, and the cafeteria is open until nine. I'll come find you later."

"Thank you, Dr. Griffin." Nodding with a smile, Clarke turned away and headed down the hall. She passed by the ORs, peering inside to see the interns working on the other shootout victims. Fortunately, according to the paramedics, no one besides Blake had been seriously injured or killed and the criminals had been taken out before they could make their getaway.

_Good riddance_, thought Clarke. In her opinion, there was a special place in hell for people who attacked cops.

Later in the evening, Clarke checked in on the cop injured in the shootout. She had given Octavia the go-ahead to visit her brother, despite her earlier warning that he wasn't quite out of the woods. But she could tell the girl was desperate and no doubt scared, and something in Clarke made her cave. He was breathing along with the machine, although there were signs that he wouldn't be needing it very soon. When she relayed this news to Octavia, the girl's features lit up with a genuine smile.

As Clarke leaned over him to check his pupils, his heartrate monitor suddenly started screaming. Under her hands, he started flailing and coughing with difficulty due to the tube in his mouth, but Clarke didn't miss the flecks of blood staining the rubber. She went into action and hit the blue button on the wall next to his bed, sending out an alarm that help was needed.

Clueless, Octavia shot up like a rocket, crying out questions that Clarke was unable to answer. When a group of both nurses and interns barreled into the room, Clarke ordered them to remove Octavia.

"I need to see those x-rays! Now!" she hollered, feeling a slight bit of panic rising in her gut.

When she looked at the x-rays, she deflated like a balloon, the panic turning to a cold dread.

"How did I miss it?" she muttered in confusion, staring at the obvious blood clot between Bellamy's left lung and heart.

"You were looking for the bullet," murmured the x-ray technician.

"No excuse. I shouldn't have missed it. I need Dr. Collins, immediately." With that she spun on her heel and flew out of the room to the OR.

Finn met up with her there and she got right to the point.

"I've got a cop with a blood clot making its way to his heart. I need you to find it and remove it." With a simple nod, Finn entered the OR and Clarke was right behind him.

If one good thing could be said about Finn Collins, it was that he was exceptionally fast with his hands. In what seemed like only minutes, he had located the clot inside Bellamy's chest and removed it easily. Once they were finished, Finn pulled her outside.

"I'll prescribe an anti-coagulant, just to make sure he doesn't get another clot. But he should be fine."

Clarke sighed. "Thank you, Finn. Really." He gave her that smile that not too long ago would have made her fall for him all over again. Now it just meant heartache.

"So Clarke, about dinner…."

"Sorry, Finn. I've got a panicked sister I need to talk to." She was gone in seconds. Truth was, she really didn't want to stick around long enough for Finn to start using his sweet talk persuasion method.

Clarke found Octavia outside Bellamy's room. When the younger girl looked up she met Clarke halfway. Clarke held up her hands.

"He's going to be fine. We caught the clot before it hit his heart, and he'll be put on a blood thinner to make sure there's nothing left in there."

"How did he even get a clot?" Octavia asked her thickly. Clearly she was trying hard not to cry again.

"When he was shot—" she didn't miss the way Octavia winced, "—the trauma more than likely offset his heartbeat, so blood wasn't flowing correctly. We missed it in the original x-ray—"

"Wait you _missed_ it? How the hell did you _miss_ something like that?" Octavia's voice was nearing shrill, drawing attention from doctors and patients alike around them. Clarke held up her hands defensively again.

"We were searching for the bullet. It was our top priority. If we had wasted any more time, he would have died from asphyxiation. He would have suffocated."

Octavia scoffed, now looking at her like she was an enemy. "'Wasted' time? Finding a _clot_ that could have _killed_ my brother was a waste of time?"

"Ms. Blake, please try to understand. These things sometimes happen with gunshot victims. We're just lucky we caught it before it reached his heart. Things would have gone very badly if it had." Clarke was trying to use as calm a voice she could muster in an attempt to make Octavia understand. She _had_ to understand.

To her surprise, Octavia heaved a heavy sigh as a fresh wave of tears pooled in her eyes. "I'm sorry, you're right. It's just…he's the only family I have and I…I can't…"

Clarke wasn't sure what made her do it, but suddenly she was hugging Octavia close as she let the tears fall.

"He's going to be okay, Octavia. He's a fighter, I can tell."

Octavia pulled away, a watery smile on her face. "Yeah he is."

"Would you like to see him?"

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**A little more dialogue-heavy in this one. I like dialogue. Anyway I tried to do as much research as I could about removing a bullet in a lung without setting off Homeland Security's alarms, so if I've gotten something wrong or missed something, please tell me so I know better next time! Anyway, here's our first Bellamy appearance! Of course, it's on the table an inch from death, but hey. Anyways, thank you guys for the reviews/follows/favorites you left of this story! I'm really excited about even though I don't know quite where it's heading yet. That's the fun though isn't it? Reviews make me happy ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

Clarke was checking Bellamy's charts when he woke up. Octavia was asleep in the chair next to his bed, her dark head resting on the mattress by his hip. Clarke caught the brief confusion in his eyes as he looked up at the ceiling, followed by a grimace of pain.

"Well," Clarke said, drawing his dark eyes to her. She whipped out her flashlight and leaned over him, shining it in his eyes. "Welcome back, Mr. Blake."

"What happened?" His voice was deep and hoarse, his throat dry. With a weak arm he reached out towards the table beside his bed for the water that had been left there, but he immediately hissed out a curse, pressing his outstretched hand to his chest.

"You were shot." His eyes widened in surprise. "You took a slug to your lung, but we were able to remove it without a hitch. No shrapnel broke off. We then located a clot moving into your heart from your lung, and we were able to catch that as well. Judging by your charts, you're looking at a full recovery." Clarke had handed him the glass of water on the table, and he downed it in three large gulps.

"Feels like I got hit by a train," he groused, leaning his head back into the pillows. Clarke smiled wryly.

"Would've saved you a world of hurt, I'm sure. Do you need anything? Pain levels okay?" He met her eyes with a quick shake of his head. "Great. I'll be back to check in on you later."

"Dr., uh…"

"Griffin. Clarke Griffin."

"Dr. Griffin, did anyone else…?"

"No. There were some minor injuries but nothing life-threatening. You were the only one who needed major surgery."

"And the perps, did they…?"

"That I'm not sure, Mr. Blake. But I'm sure you can ask your squad in a couple of days. Half a dozen have camped outside your room. You've got quite the welcome wagon." With a quick smile, she spun on her heel and headed down the hall just as Octavia was stirring. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, but she froze when she noticed her brother sitting up in bed.

"Bellamy!" she cried, already feeling an onslaught of tears pooling in her eyes. She hugged him tenderly, careful not to jostle him. He chuckled.

"It's okay, O. I'm not made of glass."

"You may as well have been." Her voice quieted and Bellamy noted how unlike her it was. "They almost let you die."

"O, I'm sure it didn't happen that way."

Octavia grumbled under her breath, her dark eyebrows pulling together as she frowned. Bellamy sighed and took her small hand in his.

"I'm still here, O. You've got nothing to worry about."

"Promise?" she muttered.

"Promise."

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Confined to a hospital bed was not how Bellamy wanted to spend the next few days, and it didn't take long before the cabin fever started kicking in and his legs itched to move. He needed to be out there in his patrol car with his partner, stopping speeders and tracking down criminals, not lying in a bed being useless. When it seemed almost inevitable that he would implode from the boredom, Bellamy threw off the covers of his bed and swung his legs over the side. Octavia had gone home a few hours ago at his behest with a promise that she would be back first thing in the morning.

As he stood up, slowly and unsteadily, Bellamy caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. God was he pale, and the hospital gown looked horrid on him. He grimaced and turned to grab the IV bag pole, walking it along beside him. He looked out into the hallway, but at nine in the evening, all seemed quiet in the hospital, so he ducked out of the room and took a right. Nurses passed by him and peered up at him through their lashes, giving him small smiles as they hurried along completing their duties. Bellamy scoffed internally. Even in a hospital gown he still drew attention to himself.

Outside, thunder was rumbling and lightning split the skies. Anything and everything exposed was soaked in seconds. Bellamy took a moment to look out at the city, lit up like a Christmas tree, leaning his hands on the windowsill. He never imagined that he would call Boston his home. Having been born in Arizona, the idea of actually having a winter appealed to him about as much as the pain in his side. He'd never seen snow before, and Boston was by far wetter than Arizona had been. Strangely he didn't mind it and eventually he could come to call it home. Octavia took to the city faster than he did; after their mother passed away, Bellamy hauled her off across the country to escape any and all of the painful memories that came with Phoenix. She was just as eager for the move and it didn't take long at all before she was making friends at work and enjoying a social life. Bellamy still kept tabs on her (he was a cop, after all), but he'd come to trust that she was (mostly) an adult and could look out for herself (to an extent; he still wasn't willing to budge on her dating, but that lasted all of a week).

He liked Lincoln, more than he would admit to Octavia. The man was a hard worker and had a good head on his shoulders, and he cared for Octavia just as much as Bellamy did. Sometimes Lincoln gave him a run for his money in his overprotectiveness and Bellamy had no choice but to admire that in him. Eventually, he stopped glaring daggers into Lincoln every time he came over for dinner.

"Mr. Blake!" He was snapped out of his reverie by that blonde doctor. _Clarke_. She strode purposefully up to him, her expression reading _all business_. "You're not supposed to be out of bed yet." He smiled crookedly and didn't miss the way her blue eyes flickered momentarily to the action.

"Sorry. I couldn't sit in that bed any longer today. I needed to move."

"Well, you moved. Now you need to get back to bed and rest. You don't want to rip those stitches." When he didn't make a move to leave, she crossed her arms and cocked her hip. "Do I have to drag you back there myself? Because I'm totally not against that."

He chuckled. She was feisty. "Something tells me you've had to do it before, and I don't really feel like testing that theory today. I'm going." Grabbing hold of the IV pole, Bellamy made slow work of heading back to his room, casting Clarke a wry smile over his shoulder. She was watching him sternly, still in that same no-nonsense position, but Bellamy could have sworn he saw her lips twitch in an amused smile. Before he could ponder it any further, she turned and headed down the hallway, disappearing around the corner.

Bellamy groaned as he eased himself back into bed, swinging his legs up one at a time, his side pulling painfully.

"Dammit," he hissed.

Getting shot sucked.

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**Author's Note: Thank you to those that reviewed the last chapter! I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this! Also just a heads-up that I love writing long chapters normally, but this one I had a little trouble with, hence why it's so short. I also get detail-heavy sometimes. Just a warning ;)**


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